The weirdest things about English
Enjoy this whistlestop tour of the weirdness of English. And start speaking a new languages in 3 weeks with Babbel . Get up to 60% OFF your subscription ? Here: https://go.babbel.com/t?bsc=usa-influ... …
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English is weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought though.
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When only a contraction sounds "right" but the full words do not. Don't you dare! v. Do not you dare!
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In Australia, we use a word to negate a negative statement and we use it all the time. For example “Rob, you didn’t take the bins out again.” “Bullshit!”
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A friend of mine started using "grandboss" for boss's boss and I love it.
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Mine own owl, grown and gowned, owned a crow's crown, mined by the slow plow, flown down, never scowling, yet unknown.
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“Rob, you didn’t take the bins out again.” “False.”
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When you talked about the present tense, I thought you were going to mention (you almost did but didn't quite), the fact that we don't use the "present tense" as our present tense: "What are you doing?" "I am reading a book." We never ever say: "I read a book." The so-called "present progressive" has completely supplanted the present tense in our language.
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As a Swede, I'm so jealous of your access to single words to describe certain bodily movements like "shrug", "squat", "frown", "nudge" and "poke". In Swedish, you often have to describe it with a whole sentence, like "sitting down in a crouched position" or "push someone gently with your elbow". A terrible waste of time for us..
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3:16 RIP, Rob. Eaten by his Kitten. Another tragic instance in which a comma could've saved a life.
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The part about phrasal verbs reminds me of a joke that Victor Borge used to tell about how, in English, it is odd that you have to cut down a tree before you can cut it up.
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Rob: we don't have a word to negate a negative statement. me: incorrect
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Loved the "medieval Youtube" screen The little details like "brethren", "subscribeth", the video with the boar. That's quality: taking time to produce a result, even if that product is there for a few seconds.
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Indefinite article in Dutch created the word 'Decoy'. It came from 'Eendekooi', duck cage (Eend = Duck), which was used to catch wild ducks by putting tame ducks in a cage. Wild ducks would flock with the tame ones making it easier to catch them. Anyway, it was wrongly assumed the 'Een' at the beginning was the indefinite article, thus 'Een dekooi' which turned into 'a decoy'.
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The missing word I've been asked about several times by learners of English is the question word asking for an ordinal number. "Whichth wierdness was the pronouns?" - "The seventh." "Whichth president was Obama?" - "The forty-fourth." Thanks for the video!
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A fun fact: in “Star Trek: Enterprise” they don’t use the definite article about the ship (eg. “We need to get back to Enterprise.”). In other Star Trek series, they do use it (eg. “We need to get back to the Enterprise.”).
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5:26 - My mother who was raised in England would END a sentence with "do" for emphasis!, as in "Stop it, DO!" (very British!)
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20:26 We should bring back overmorrow and ereyesterday into common usage, they could be pretty useful (although maybe change "ereyesterday" to sound better since it doesn't sound as nice as "overmorrow" to me).
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I would argue that the indefinite article serves an absolute purpose, in clarification. Such as, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "You got my note!" "Well, I got A note." It doesn't work the same without that indefinite article specifying that he doubts the note's authenticity.
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A conversation with my Italian friend... "How do you say your alarm wakes you up in the morning?" "My alarm goes off.." "NO! Your alarm goes ON!" Gave me pause for thought.
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SiderYou may be interested in these questions:
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00:21
English is peculiar compared to other languages due to its abundance of unique sounds, particularly vowel sounds, making it stand out with around a dozen vowel sounds compared to the average 5 or 6 in other languages.
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06:21
English is unique for its overreliance on phrasal verbs, lacking grammatical gender, and peculiar pronouns, making it a fascinating language to study and compare with others.
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12:29
English language has unique and strange features compared to other languages, such as obligatory pronouns, complex spelling rules, peculiar tenses, and the presence of definite and indefinite articles, making it stand out linguistically.
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19:41
English language lacks specific words for certain concepts present in other languages, like gender-neutral terms for a parent's sibling or words for specific family relationships and time references, leading to unique linguistic gaps.
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